1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an audio signal processing method, and a program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to improvements in transfer speeds over wired and wireless communications and the increasing prevalence of networks such as the Internet, it is becoming increasingly common to see content usage patterns wherein content data send from one information processing apparatus is received and played back on another information processing apparatus.
When transferring content data between information processing apparatus in this way, the receiving information processing apparatus might become unable to receive part of the signal expressing the content data (i.e., the signal might be cut off), due to degraded communication, for example. At this point, if the content data is audio-containing data, then there is a possibility that an undesirable event may occur when the signal is cut off as described above. For example, noise may be produced in the audio being played back.
Given these circumstances, technology for detecting discontinuity in an incoming signal is being developed. For example, International Publication No. 98/43423 Pamphlet discloses technology wherein a header provided with a counter is appended to data (i.e., a payload) expressing video and/or audio. Doing so enables the determination of whether or not an incoming signal has been rejected mid-transfer.